Arista DCS-7280CR-48-R — 48×QSFP100 + 8×QSFP+ Switch Router with Rear-to-Front Airflow
The
Arista DCS-7280CR-48-R is a 2RU switch router in the 7280R Series, delivering
10.24 Tbps of non-blocking switching capacity with
48 × 100GbE QSFP28 line-rate ports and
8 × QSFP+ uplink ports. Built on a deep buffer VOQ ASIC platform with
32 GB of packet buffer memory and
3.8 µs store-and-forward latency, the 7280CR-48 provides the same Layer 2/3 switch router capabilities as the entire 7280R series — full BGP routing, MPLS, Segment Routing, EVPN, VXLAN, and 128-way ECMP — with ultra-high-density 100G port count for core and spine deployments. The “
-R” suffix denotes
rear-to-front (standard) airflow, where cool air enters from the port side and exhausts from the non-port side of the chassis. For front-to-rear airflow, see the
DCS-7280CR-48-F.
Key Features at a Glance
- 48 × 100GbE QSFP28 line-rate ports supporting 100GBASE-SR4, LR4, DR, FR, CWDM4, ZR/ZR+, and DAC/AOC cables
- 8 × QSFP+ uplink ports supporting 40GbE or breakout to 4×10GbE — up to 32 × 10G additional ports via breakout
- 10.24 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity with 5.76 Bpps (5.76 billion packets per second) forwarding rate
- 3.8 µs store-and-forward latency with 32 GB VOQ deep packet buffer — eliminates head-of-line blocking
- Full Layer 3 switch router: BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, MPLS (LDP, RSVP-TE, BGP LU), SR-MPLS, EVPN, VXLAN, 128-way ECMP
- 768K host routes (IPv4 and IPv6), over 1M IPv4 LPM routes, 928K IPv6 LPM routes — full Internet routing table support
- Multi-core x86 CPU with 16 GB DRAM running Arista EOS
- IEEE 1588v2 PTP hardware-assisted Precision Time Protocol for network clock synchronization
- Telemetry: LANZ, sFlow, Advanced Event Management (AEM), DANZ, streaming telemetry via gNMI and eAPI
- CloudVision integration, Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP), Python/Bash scripting, OpenConfig
- Hot-swappable dual PSU (1+1) and N+1 fan trays; rear-to-front (-R) airflow
- 2RU form factor — 1363W typical / 1710W maximum power draw
- BrightStar Systems: Supplied fully tested, reset to factory defaults, and backed by a 1-year in-house warranty
10.24 Tbps Non-Blocking VOQ Architecture
The DCS-7280CR-48-R delivers
10.24 Tbps of full-duplex, non-blocking throughput — (48 × 100 Gbps) + (8 × 40 Gbps) in both directions simultaneously. The
Virtual Output Queue (VOQ) ASIC architecture maintains separate queues for each input-to-output port pair, eliminating head-of-line blocking. With a
5.76 Bpps forwarding rate, the switch operates at full line rate across all port combinations regardless of traffic mix or packet size distribution. The
32 GB deep packet buffer is distributed across the VOQ structure, providing substantial burst absorption capacity. Unlike shared-memory switches with smaller buffer pools, the VOQ deep buffer architecture handles transient congestion, TCP incast events, and bursty traffic patterns without triggering early packet drops or ECN marking — delivering higher effective throughput in oversubscribed topologies and multi-tenant datacenter environments.
3.8 µs Store-and-Forward Latency
The 7280CR-48-F operates in store-and-forward mode with a measured latency of
3.8 microseconds. The ASIC receives the complete packet, performs a full Layer 2/3 lookup, applies ACLs and QoS policies, and forwards the packet — all within 3.8 µs. This design trades the sub-microsecond latency of cut-through architectures for the ability to buffer, inspect, and apply policy at every forwarding decision, while maintaining sub-10-microsecond performance suitable for enterprise, service provider, and data center applications.
Port Configuration and Optics
The 7280CR-48-F provides 48 × 100GbE QSFP28 line-rate ports and 8 × QSFP+ uplink ports:
- 48 × 100GbE QSFP28: Support for 100GBASE-SR4, LR4, DR, FR, CWDM4, ZR/ZR+, and DAC/AOC cables. Breakout to 4×25GbE or 4×10GbE via standard breakout cables.
- 8 × QSFP+ uplink ports: Support for 40GBASE-SR4, LR4, CR4, and DAC/AOC cables. Breakout to 4×10GbE via standard breakout cables.
- Management: 1 × 100/1000 Mbps out-of-band management port + 1 × RS-232 RJ-45 console port, independent of the forwarding plane.
- Maximum port configurations: Up to 224 × 10GbE ports via QSFP28/QSFP+ breakout, or 192 × 25GbE, 96 × 50GbE, 56 × 40GbE, or 48 × 100GbE in various combinations.
Layer 2/3 Switch Router Capabilities
The 7280CR-48-F operates as a unified switch router with full Layer 2 and Layer 3 feature sets:
- BGP Full-Table Routing: 768K IPv4 and IPv6 host routes, over 1M IPv4 unicast LPM routes, 928K IPv6 LPM routes in the hardware FIB. Supports MP-BGP, BGP graceful restart, and 128-way ECMP for load balancing across equal-cost paths.
- MPLS: Line-rate MPLS label switching with LDP, RSVP-TE, and BGP Labeled Unicast (BGP LU) for carrier-grade MPLS networks and VPN services.
- Segment Routing: SR-MPLS for simplified traffic engineering without per-path LSP state in the network core.
- EVPN and VXLAN: VXLAN Tunnel Endpoint (VTEP) and EVPN control plane for multi-tenant overlay networks, data center interconnect, and MAC mobility.
- Routing Protocols: OSPF, OSPFv3, IS-IS, RIPv2, VRF, BFD, uRPF, VRRP, VARP, and Policy-Based Routing (PBR).
- Layer 2: 802.1w/s Spanning Tree, RPVST+, 4096 VLANs, Q-in-Q, 802.3ad LACP (64 ports/channel, 224 groups), MLAG (128 ports per MLAG), Jumbo Frames (9216 bytes), IGMP snooping.
Telemetry, Monitoring, and Analytics
- LANZ (Latency Analyzer): Per-port, real-time microburst detection and queue depth monitoring at microsecond granularity. Records egress port, queue, drop reason, and timestamp for every congestion event.
- sFlow v5: Industry-standard traffic sampling for flow analysis and capacity planning. Integrates with third-party collectors (Kentik, Splunk, Solarwinds).
- Streaming Telemetry: Real-time counter and state export via gNMI (gRPC) and Arista eAPI (REST). Supports OpenConfig data models for vendor-neutral management.
- Advanced Event Management (AEM): Programmable event-driven automation within EOS — customize alerts and actions, automate routine tasks, and respond to real-time network conditions.
- DANZ: Arista’s telemetry fabric for advanced mirroring (14 sessions), port mirroring, SPAN/TAP M:N aggregation, and L2/3/4 filtering.
- IEEE 1588v2 PTP: Hardware-assisted Precision Time Protocol for synchronized network timing, supporting Boundary Clock and Transparent Clock modes.
EOS Automation and Provisioning
The 7280CR-48-F runs
Arista EOS, a modular operating system built on a standard Linux kernel where each process runs in its own protected memory space and communicates through an in-memory state-sharing database (Sysdb). This architecture enables in-service software updates and self-healing resiliency without data plane interruption.
- CloudVision: Centralized configuration management, network-wide change control, topology visualization, and compliance monitoring across multi-site Arista deployments.
- Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): Automatic configuration download on first power-up via DHCP — no manual CLI access required for initial deployment.
- Python and Bash: Native on-box scripting with full Linux shell access for custom event handlers and automation workflows.
- eAPI (JSON-RPC): RESTful programmatic interface to all configuration and operational commands. Integrates with Ansible, Terraform, and custom orchestration.
- OpenConfig and gNMI: Vendor-neutral data models and high-performance streaming RPC for configuration and telemetry.
Security
- Control Plane Policing (CoPP): Rate-limiting of CPU-destined traffic to protect routing stability
- ACLs: Ingress/egress access control lists at L2, L3, and L4 enforced in the ASIC at line rate — up to 24K ACL entries per forwarding engine
- TACACS+ and RADIUS: Centralized authentication and accounting for administrative access
- Secure Boot: Cryptographic verification of bootloader and EOS image integrity
- MAC Security, DHCP Relay/Snooping, ARP trapping for Layer 2 security enforcement
Quality of Service (QoS)
- Up to 8 queues per port with strict priority, weighted round-robin (WRR), and weighted fair queueing (WFQ)
- 802.1p and DSCP classification and remarking
- ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification) marking for TCP-friendly congestion signaling
- PFC (Priority Flow Control) and DCBX (Data Center Bridging Exchange) for converged traffic
- Egress shaping and policing per-interface and per-queue
Physical Specifications and Airflow
The “
-R” airflow configuration provides
rear-to-front (standard) cooling, where cool air enters from the port side and exhausts from the non-port side. Both
-F (front-to-rear) and -R variants are electrically identical.
- Form Factor: 2RU — 19 × 3.5 × 22.2 inches (48.3 × 8.9 × 56.3 cm)
- Weight: 46.7 lbs (21.2 kg)
- Power: 1363W typical / 1710W maximum; 1900W AC or 1900W DC power supplies
- Redundancy: Dual hot-swappable PSU (1+1) and 4 hot-swappable fan trays (N+1)
- Storage: 4 GB Flash, optional SSD, 1 × USB port
- Compliance: FCC Class A, CE, RoHS, WEEE, NEBS
Lifecycle and Reliability
- Self-Healing Software: EOS includes Stateful Fault Repair (SFR) for automatic recovery from software faults without data plane impact, and Stateful Fault Containment (SFC) for fault isolation.
- In-Service Software Updates: Dual-partition boot with Smart System Upgrade (SSU) and Accelerated Software Update (ASU) for planned upgrades with minimal disruption.
- Configuration Rollback: Instant rollback to previous configuration snapshots via EOS configuration replace.
- BrightStar Systems 1-Year Warranty: Supplied fully tested, reset to factory defaults, and backed by a 1-year in-house warranty.
Scalability and Table Sizes
- MAC Addresses: 768K
- IPv4 Host Routes: 768K
- IPv6 Unicast Host Routes: 768K
- IPv4 Unicast LPM Routes: Over 1M
- IPv6 Unicast LPM Routes: 928K
- Multicast Routes: Up to 768K
- ACL Entries per Forwarding Engine: 24K
- ECMP: 128-way
- LACP: 64 ports/channel, 224 groups
- MLAG: 128 ports per MLAG
Similar Arista Models to Consider
- DCS-7280CR3K-32P4-F: 32×OSFP (800G capable) + 4×OSFP (400G) third-generation 7280R3 switch router with 512-way ECMP and enhanced forwarding scale for next-generation high-density core deployments.
- DCS-7280SR-48C6-F: 48×SFP+ (1/10G) + 6×QSFP28 (100G) for lower-port-density access and aggregation layers with same VOQ buffer and routing table support.
- DCS-7280SRA-48C6-F: 48×SFP+ (1/10G) + 6×QSFP28 (100G) with AlgoMatch for advanced policy-based forwarding and packet classification on fiber access.
Related 7280 Series Resources
For comprehensive technical documentation and comparative model information across the Arista 7280 family, visit
In-depth technical overview of the Arista 7280R series.
Summary
The Arista DCS-7280CR-48-R is a 2RU switch router combining 48 × 100GbE QSFP28 line-rate ports with 8 × QSFP+ uplinks, 10.24 Tbps non-blocking throughput, 32 GB VOQ deep packet buffer, and full Layer 2/3 capabilities including BGP, MPLS, SR-MPLS, EVPN, and VXLAN. Running Arista EOS with CloudVision integration, ZTP, and comprehensive telemetry (LANZ, sFlow, AEM, DANZ), the 7280CR-48-F is available from BrightStar Systems fully tested, reset to factory defaults, and backed by a 1-year in-house warranty.
